Microsoft has confirmed that starting with Windows 10 version 1803 it no longer performs automatic backups of the Windows Registry.
As Ghacks reports, it used to be the case that Windows 10 would automatically perform Windows Registry backups on a regular basis. It's useful to do so in case there's ever a situation where restoring an older version of the Registry fixes a problem. However, in October last year Registry backups stopped working even though Windows 10 still reported they had succeeded. Was this a bug? Turns out it wasn't.
A new Windows support page has appeared explaining how automatic backups of the Windows Registry will no longer happen and that this is "by design." The reason for the change is in order to "help reduce the overall disk footprint size of Windows."
Instead of relying on automatic backups, Microsoft wants user to rely on system restore points, which can be set before you take any action that may result in your system becoming unstable or unresponsive. Some software installs go as far as to suggest setting a system restore point or creating one automatically.
The good news is, Microsoft only disabled the feature rather than removing it and you can turn the automatic backups on again. Microsoft refers to this as "legacy backup behavior" and it requires you to do the following:
- Load the Registry Editor by typing regedit.exe in the Start menu
- Navigate to HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Configuration Manager
- Right-click Configuration Manager and create a new Dword (32-bit) Value
- Name the new value EnablePeriodicBackup
- Double-click EnablePeriodicBackup and set the value to 1
- Reboot your PC
After that, the backups will continue to happen automatically and they get saved to the \Windows\System32\config\RegBack folder. It's also a good idea to backup your PC on a regular basis just in case the worst happens.
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